will present its findings from recent investigations of a ghost town, an abandoned mine, and the infamous Ludlow Massacre site northwest of Trinidad. They will also take you inside a well-known restaurant in the San Luis Valley where customers get more than just fine food–the dessert is not on the menu!Join us for a FREE presentation, including
our recent photos of REAL GHOSTS!

BONUS:Paul Hill, co-founder of Light in the Dark Paranormal and licensed real estate broker, will tell you HOW TO BUY(or Sell) A HAUNTED HOUSE.

If the above title read All Things Supernatural, would we be talking about the same thing? What if it was All Things Paranormal? Same subject? While bigfoots, zombies, mutilated cattle, UFO’s, and ghosts* are certainly not ordinary, are they supernatural, paranormal, or something else?

Let’s get some definitions. Merriam/Webster’s online dictionary says supernatural is …of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe, especially of or relating to God, a god, demigod, spirit, or devil. Whew! Surely a ghost fits somewhere in there, but is a dead cow the result of a supernatural event? That’s a bit presumptuous.

What do they say about paranormal? …not scientifically explainable: supernatural. Wait a minute! I’m not buying this either. There are lots of scientific theories supporting all of these things…zombies even! A theory is just somebody’s explanation that’s not (yet) proven—its hypothetical. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is just that: a theory that just about every white-coated scientist believes despite lack of absolute proof.

Theories are cool. Though unproven, you can still believe one is true and rely on it day-to-day. So when it comes to having a less than rickety frame of reference for otherwise crazy things like UFO’s and ghosts, I think there’s no better concept than my old fav, the preternatural. I first heard this term uttered by a fictional character named Dr. Markway (played by Richard Johnson) in the 1963 film the Haunting (the original movie; not the stupid re-make. It happens to be my favorite ghost movie, and I highly recommend it to any serious believer or skeptic. I also blame it for my continuing preoccupation with ghosts decades later).

Dr. John Markway: A closed mind is the worst defense against the supernatural… If it happens to you, your liable to have that shut door in your mind ripped right off it’s hinges!-from the Haunting

Early in the movie, the parapsychologist is trying to explain to a skeptical but curious investigator his theory of why things keep going bump in the night in an old mansion in New England. He tells his dubious associate that there were lots of phenomena that were not explainable at the time they happened, but were later proven scientifically. He gave the example of magnetism. What self-respecting peasant in 16th Century Europe didn’t think that a (magnetic) rock causing a metal knife to inexplicably slide towards it wasn’t the work of Satan? It was supernatural then. Its Physics 101 now.

Markway’s term for this kind of stuff was preternatural. You know, as in before nature; before it was proven to be a natural part of it.

In this 21st Century we now have the words to talk about weird things, the theories that might explain them, the hardware to measure them, and the growing evidence that could eventually prove they exist. But most of us still don’t get it. What’s happening “out there” (where the truth is) is still beyond common understanding.

Enter the Valley by Christopher O’Brien is his second book about one very strange locale in southern Colorado, the San Luis Valley. It has a little bit of everything, including ghosts, UFO’s, and cattle mutilations. Trying to put all this into perspective, he offers up not only experiences and theories, but rules of how to investigate them. One of his theory/rules is “the (sub) culture itself may cocreate manifestations of individually perceived phenomena.” If he’s right, some paranormal occurrences could be in our collective heads… as if our brains are responsible for conjuring up the very things our brains are anxiously trying to figure out!

Or instead do these “non-ordinary” events happen in a Castanedan universe–a Separate Reality that exists independently of our own thoughts?

In the long run, only you know what you saw, heard, or felt if you were lucky enough to have a preternatural experience. Don’t ever let anyone convince you it was just your imagination!

Paul Hill

all rights reserved

*Author’s comment: 10/1/2012–I was just reminded by a reader as to why no vampires are on this list at Halloween season: “From my all-time favorite TV show, the legendary “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” comes the notion that the one night of the year that you won’t find vampires and other demon-y creatures about is Hallowe’en. They take the night off because, as one vamp in the show, said, it’s just too much of a mess out there, can’t always tell the real vamps from the make-believe, you could end up biting one of your own.”

Halloween, based loosely on the Christian All Souls Day (also called All Saints Day), celebrates the souls of our departed brethren. Though experienced differently in different cultures, the idea is essentially the same. But the Halloween we know today has been considerably secularized, and has transformed into a popular holiday for kids who know it’s time for Trick or Treating.

It is in fact a day that even adults look forward to, happily decorating their front yards with orange lights strung on porches and bed sheet ghosts hung on trees. But this story isn’t about Halloween that comes only once a year. That day is in some respects just an excuse for the more thoughtful among us to dwell on those supernatural things most of us don’t think about the rest of the year.

Do you?

Every October, we allow ourselves and our kids to think of those scary manifestations of the dead…GHOSTS! Ghosts are usually associated with houses, but could be in factories, government buildings, restaurants, theatres, hotels, or other commercial establishments. In most cases they “appear” to be the former living occupants, owners, employees, or customers. When ghosts are perceived by the living, and a building gains a certain reputation as home to those spirits, we call it haunted. . .

Haunted Houses have been the source of many a scary story, and the practice of real estate has not been immune to them. Ask any real estate broker who has been in the business long enough if he/she has ever had a strange experience in one of the homes they were showing or selling. Whether a believer or not, many would admit that they did.

So how do haunted houses come into being? Here are some theories…

The most popular explanation is that ghosts are the departed souls of people who left this life rather abruptly, and still don’t understand that they are “dead”. Others believe that ghosts are those who have left some important thing undone in their life, or have suffered some great injustice, and are sticking around to either do that chore or correct that injustice.

My favorite theory revolves around energy dynamics. If you remember high school physics, you learned about the conservation of energy, i.e., energy cannot be destroyed, only converted to some other form. People are bundles of energy, and the Great Question has always been what happens to human energy when a person dies?

If that energy truly does not die with the human form, and is converted to something else, what is that something other than just cellular decay? Regardless of personal religious beliefs which purport to explain what happens, the fact is those who believe in ghosts think that in some cases, all or part of that energy remains right here on earth, albeit in a different form.

The energy present in people’s homes is a result of all the energetic things within it: people, plants, pets, etc. Practitioners of feng shuibelieve in the positive and negative flow of such energies, and their substantial effect on the occupants within. Healersbelieve that ailing people, pets, and places can actually be “healed” by the conscious direction of positive energy.

So to get back to the issue of haunted real estate… we might hypothesize that the people who live in homes eventually imprint the structure with their energies (if they have lived there long enough). Have you ever walked into someone’s house and immediately felt really good about the people and objects within it?

Believers would say the occupants’ positive energies are part of the house. On the other hand, have you ever been in a place where you just felt bad for some unexplainable reason, regardless of what was going on or what conversations were taking place?

These energies can be very positive or very negative. It depends on who lives (or lived) in the house, and what they did. For example, husbands and wives who might have argued incessantly while in their home could have imparted these “bad vibes” to the house itself.

Consider a home where there was a murder, a suicide,or some other kind of violent energetic episode, and you may be considering a haunted house!

Ask the broker who is selling a home in a nasty divorce situation… sometimes one can just sense the acrimony, even though it may now be vacant. There is a spectrum of energy left in homes, ranging from just a little bit to downright humongous! Consider a home where there was a murder, a suicide, or some other kind of violent energetic episode, and you may be considering a haunted house!

Such hauntings are not always the result of violence or ill will. They can also stem from the friendly soul who perhaps needs to send a message to the living, right a wrong, or just finally realize that he or she has passed on (they don’t always know it).

How do you as a buyer of real estate know whether a house is afflicted with negative energy? Your own perceptions are the first to be acknowledged; if you just don’t feel good there, perhaps it is best to move on. But if you are persistent, and you think the home is just “too good of a deal”, some remedial action is possible. Hiring a feng shui consultant or a house healer may be in order. In more extreme cases, a priest or minister can be asked to bless the house, or a psychiccan be called in for a session. If you’re more inclined to the high tech approach, bring in your local ghosthunters with all the latest equipment. We won’t talk about exorcisms, the most extreme solution.

What if a broker thinks that a home for sale is haunted? Does she have a duty to tell the buyer? Colorado real estate law does speak to this issue: under Section 38-35.5-101 of the CRS Statutes:

No cause of action shall arise against a real estate broker …
for failing to disclose such circumstance occurring on the property which might psychologically impact or stigmatize such property.

In other words, Colorado law makers didn’t want brokers to be able to inadvertently stigmatize a property by saying it was the scene of emotionally violent acts like murder or suicide, let alone haunted (see Related Story for a different state’s interpretation).

On the other hand, you as a buyer would certainly want to know this before you inherit some things in the house you may not want. What if a property has a well known reputation of possibly being haunted, like Briarhurst Manor in Manitou Springs? When it was recently on the market, the listing broker made no bones about disclosing the “haunting.” But since it was purchased there has been no further news. If it were to come up for sale again, would I as a broker disclose that possibility to an uninformed buyer (Better to Disclose)? Probably. It would be hard to stigmatize a property that already has such a well-established reputation.

But what if that property in Colorado* did not have such a reputation, and you were shown it as a buyer? What if you sensed something wrong? Even if you were convinced it was haunted, and the broker showing it agreed, the next time he showed it to a different buyer he would not be required to disclose his opinion.

Haunted Houses are part of the real estate market and part of our modern culture, regardless of what you may or may not believe. Whether you’re buying or selling, it dosen’t have to be Halloween to sleep well in a haunted house!

Paul HillAll Rights Reserved

*Each state has its own law regarding disclosure of paranormal properties. Consult your local broker or department of real estate for details.